


Accursed

by ohmyfae



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: AU, Accursed Luna, F/M, Happy Ending, Luna gets to be angry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-30 05:48:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14490165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyfae/pseuds/ohmyfae
Summary: At the altar of the Tidemother, Lunafreya Nox Fleuret takes Ardyn Izunia's hand, and everything goes to hell.Now shouldering the burden of the Accursed, Luna forges a bloody path through the Empire. Noctis follows, desperate to cure her before her soul is beyond saving.A fill for the kinkmeme!





	1. Chapter 1

At the altar of the Tidemother, Lunafreya Nox Fleuret takes Ardyn Izunia's hand.

Luna's mother is dead.

Luna's mother is dead, and her country has fallen, and she feels the throbbing pain of a hand on her cheek stronger than the beat of her own heart. Her brother is crying in a room on the third floor somewhere, too lost and frightened to wonder if his sister is even now picking herself up off the floor of her mother's parlor, blood in her teeth. It is Luna's first betrayal. She is alone, she will always have to face this alone, there will be no one to hold her hand or pet her hair or smile at her from across the room at state functions. Rage builds, bubbling up from her stomach, but Luna keeps it still. It remains there, like a held breath, building, building.

In Altissia, light forms in her hands. Ardyn's eyes widen. 

Regis is dead.

Nyx is dead.

Ravus is dying, spitting blood onto the front of his new uniform as he's airlifted to the empire for recovery. He's lucky, Luna supposes, that he only lost the arm. She thinks of the man who burned mere seconds after slipping on the ring, the way his fingers blistered her palm as she pulled the ring from his flaming corpse, and a small part of her thinks: Yes. Yes, he deserves this. He was going to kill her. Even the ring saw him as unworthy. He deserves this.

But she holds it down, because she knows that such small, vicious thoughts are not what she is. They're just the byproduct of pain, of exhaustion. Of walking too long in heels down a road ravaged by daemonfire.

She reaches the gates of Insomnia, and sees Gentiana's softly smiling face.

_Where were you?_

Ardyn lurches to his knees. The light grows. Luna rises, slowly, with the creak of weary limbs and the harsh gasp of labored breath.

Above her, the Leviathan is a shadow against the sky.

Luna is dying. Maybe she wouldn't be, if she were allowed to take her time. Maybe if she ate more than a handful of vegetables scavenged from shady corners in the rock, her body could stand up to the weight of her covenants. Maybe if she weren't alone, if she had someone with her, if her mother were here to hold her hand and say, No, love, you must make this pattern first, to prevent the power of the gods from flowing through you. Maybe if she could sleep without hearing the roar of an airship over her shelter. Maybe if

Maybe

A wave crashes over the altar. Luna looks down at Ardyn, kneeling before her, saltwater ruining his fine clothes. Here is the conductor of all her misery, of centuries of suffering and war. Here is the man who whispered the secret of magitech to the emperor's lackeys, who poisoned the mind of King Regis' most trusted men, who schemes and plots and smiles at her so sweetly when they meet for matters of state.

The sound of her hand as it swings down is loud as a thunderclap. Ardyn rocks under the force of it, and she allows herself to smile, just a little. 

But the twitch of her lips gives way too easily, and now she's throwing her head back, laughing, never minding that the tears that trail down her cheeks taste nothing of salt. She doesn't care that the viscous black blood of the Scourge dots her dress, doesn't care that Ardyn stares at her with eyes too wide and too human, doesn't care when the next blow sends him crashing to the altar. 

She turns to the wavering shape of the goddess of the sea and laughs.

"I have two kings at my feet," she cries. Noctis hunches beside her, struggling to rise. He, too, has been betrayed. He, too, knows hunger, knows the sound of the empire's approach, knows the sting of grief. And yet the gods would have him give more still, and the rage that Luna has held for so long is released in one shuddering, terrible breath.

Something stirs in her chest. A clamoring, like the shout of a crowd, a million voices crying together in a desperate plea.

"I hear you," she whispers. She knows what to do. Her hand clenches, and her trident shivers, glowing red-hot as an iron bar in the forge.

"No," Ardyn says.

Luna doesn't even look his way. "You had your chance," she says, and hefts the trident carefully, eyeing the slick underbelly of the goddess. "All that power, and you used it to slink around corners and whisper from the shadows. What a waste you are."

The Leviathan rears her head back to strike. Noctis' hand grips Luna's ankle. Ardyn lunges for her, hands grasping at her waist. And Luna heaves her trident through the air, making a glowing, perfect line straight to the goddess' heart.

 

\---

 

Something is wrong with Luna's face.

She kneels at Noct's side, a hand on his cheek, another holding a trident that oozes dark blood down her arm and onto her smudged white dress. There's something stuck in the prongs of the trident, something organic, like the meat of Gladio's shoulder when he was gouged by a dualhorn a few weeks back. Noctis watches it slip from the trident inch by inch, stretching like skin, the dim light of the overcast sky shining through it.

A grey shape flashes behind her. A wave breaks over them, but Luna's hand latches onto Noct's collar, and he coughs and wheezes as a second wave rolls through. But that isn't what makes Noct freeze up, stiffening under her grip.

It's the scream.

The waters are starting to recede, but he can still hear it; A thin, pained keening coming from the depths, wretched and broken. It shakes him to his bones, makes his hands lock up where they've found Luna's shoulders, his breath go short.

"They would have you die for them," Luna says. "I won't let that happen." 

Her tears are black.

"I will avenge us." Noct can barely hear her over the crash of waves against the stone. Her hand clenches painfully, dragging him up an inch, and then her face shifts, and she drops him. She rises, seemingly uninterested now that she's said her piece. 

Noctis scrambles to his hands and knees as Luna turns away. "Luna!" His voice is hoarse as a crows. "Luna, wait. Something's wrong."

Ardyn is clinging to the side of the altar, his arms wrapped around the base of the stone crescent. He opens his mouth, and Luna presses a foot in his face. She steps down, and Ardyn's hands start to slip. Luna looks up at the imperial ships hovering overhead, and twists her arm unnaturally far, with a crack that sends a spike of nausea in Noct's gut.

The closest airship starts to lean to the side. Fire bursts in the hull, and a window cracks to reveal the glowing sword of a red giant, unfolding from its place in the cockpit.

"Hm," she says. She glances back at Noct, and her brows furrow. Even like this, even with rage making a mask of her face, she's beautiful, and Noct vaguely remembers the statues of Etro in the Museum of Art in Insomnia, the ones that always frightened him as a kid. They had the same look in their eyes, the same cold, calculating fury. 

"The traitor," Luna says, and Noct twists around. Ravus Nox Fleuret is stumbling towards the altar, Ignis at his heels, and he stops abruptly, his expression gone slack.

"I loved you," Luna says. "Once. So you'll be the last to go."

"What in the gods' name," Ravus begins to say, but Luna makes another odd gesture, and the sea beneath her starts to bubble. Ardyn drags himself onto the altar in a panic as the head of a daemon Noct hasn't seen before breaches the surface, and Luna steps onto its scaled shoulders. 

Noct feels hands grip his waist, and sees, dimly, that he is now inches from the edge, ready to leap into the dark sea. Ignis wraps an arm around his shoulders and pulls him close.

"Don't," he says. "Noctis, you mustn't. It's too late, Noct. She's already gone."

She's already gone.


	2. Chapter 2

Ardyn Izunia won't stop crying. It's an awkward, deeply uncomfortable experience, watching the chancellor break down at the feel of stone under his fingers or the chill of a breeze through the window. He keeps _touching_ everything, pushing his hands against walls and cushions and seat backs, until Noct wants to snap and pin his arms together.

"My throat is sore," Ardyn says, after a while. "Remarkable."

Ignis stands to refill his water. He fumbles at the small sink in the bathroom and curses as glass shatters against the ceramic. Prompto jumps up to help before he can start picking shards out with his bare fingers.

"You're the Accursed," Noct says. He can barely recognize his own voice.

"No," Ardyn says. "I was."

"Of fucking course you were," Ravus spits, from the corner where Gladio is keeping a wary eye on him. "You bloody fucking snake."

"Too kind," Ardyn murmurs. Ravus shifts, and Gladio lays a hand on his shoulder in warning. 

Noctis remains upright. If he bends, if he so much as lowers his head, he knows that he'll keep folding up until he's curled on the floor, crawling under the bed like a child in a thunderstorm. He clenches his fists.

"What happened?"

"I don't know."

"Try again," Noct grits out. Ardyn accepts a new glass from Ignis, but doesn't raise it to his lips. 

"A transfer of power, perhaps," he says. "My magic and the magic of the Oracle's line are very similar; It could be that when we touched, she, ah. Absorbed my power. Which... by now... is tied to the Scourge."

Noctis doesn't scream.

Ravus nearly does. 

Outside, the people of Altissia crowd the docks, gathering where the body of the sea goddess has landed over two streets and part of a townhouse. No one knows what to do. In a few hours, the corpse will start to rot, and birds are already descending, undeterred by the frantic, flapping hands of the devout.

"We need to stop her," Noct says. "We need to save her. We can't just... What's she gonna do? What happens, when you're... When the daemons..."

"It's hard to explain," Ardyn says. He swipes a hand over his cheek. "You aren't yourself. It's as though you're... Oh, a car, and the Scourge is driving you. The bare bones of who you are is there, but the soul is lost. All that remains is anger."

His last words rattle in Noct's head as he stands. Gladio takes his arm before Noct even knows he's wavering, holds him steady while he tries to think past the fog in his mind.

"If it's anger that's driving her," he says, "then she's going for the empire."

"Very likely," Ardyn says. 

Noct looks to the window, where the faintest plumes of black smoke are already spiraling into the sky. "Then we follow her," he says. "We'll get to the Crystal. Ask the Kings for help."

"Yes, that'll work," Ravus says, touching his magitech arm. 

"Shut up," Gladio hisses.

"I don't see anyone else coming up with any bright ideas," Prompto says. He nudges Noct with a shoulder. "Let's go, then."

Ardyn stands, his glass slipping from shaking fingers. "Then I'll come with you," he says, and smiles wryly into the shocked silence. "You know the old adage. To catch a thief..."

"Fine," Noct says, and runs a hand through his hair. "Sure. Why not? Let's bring the chancellor. It's not like the world hasn't gone to hell already."

"That's the spirit," Ardyn says, and this time, it takes Gladio and Ignis together to hold Noct and Ravus back.

 

\---

 

Commandeering an airship is remarkably easy the second time around. The MTs that guard them are too far gone, mere puppets controlled by the Scourge, and all Luna has to do is touch them on the shoulder or arm and whisper a few words to have them on her side. 

The imperial officers remaining at the docks stare at her. Their hands twitch for their guns, and Luna smiles fondly.

"Go on," she says, and the MTs surge forward, screeching, the red light of their eyes burning with a fire that should have never been kindled.

Luna stands with her chin raised high. For an instant, her hands clench together as though in desperate prayer, but she wrenches them apart, fisting them at her sides. When it's done, Luna walks between the bodies without so much as a sideways glance.

Her airship ascends to a silent audience of MTs and the dead.

 

\---

 

"Noct." When Ignis' hand touches Noct's shoulder, it's like being struck by a live wire. Noct flinches back, banging his head on the metal wall of Ardyn Izunia's personal airship, and Ignis sinks to a knee. The ship shudders as they pass through a pocket of warm air, and Ardyn scowls at the controls, leaning close to the monitor.

"I must have needed corrective lenses in my old life," he says. "Tell me, Ravus, is that A3 or E3?"

"We're all going to die," Ravus says, and shoves Ardyn out of the way.

"Noct," Ignis says again.

"I'm fine." Noct doesn't need this. He needs to find Luna, he needs to... He doesn't know. He doesn't know what he needs to do. He doesn't know what he can do. All he can think of is Luna's face before she turned away, Luna's hand in his shirt, the blood on her dress. Over ten years of waiting, only to lose her again. He was so close.

"We'll save her," Ignis says.

"No," Ardyn says. He sits heavily on the bench beside Noctis. "I fear you won't."

Noct glances at Ardyn. His hands flex, almost imperceptibly. "Yeah? Why's that?"

"The Accursed must die to be cleansed," Ardyn says. "It's all over that precious prophecy you're following. The king of light must kill the Accursed, giving his own--"

The sound of Noct's fist colliding with Ardyn's nose is drowned out by the almighty clang of Ardyn falling to the airship floor.

"Noct!" Gladio and Prompto come running, jostling the ship as they do, and Ravus curses to himself and wrenches the controls. Ardyn doesn't rise, holding a hand to his mouth, brows lowered.

"Everyone seems rather obsessed with ruining my face," he says.

"I'll do more than that," Noct says. 

"I apologize." Ardyn's voice is dry. "I meant to say that all you need to do is present your dear Lunafreya with true love's kiss, and the daemons will miraculously dissolve in a fit of despair."

"Not helping," Gladio says, as Noct lunges forward. He holds Noct by the arms, but he doesn't have to. Noct can feel the exhaustion settling in, the fear and horror of the day twisting in his gut, and he stares down at Ardyn, searching his face.

"There isn't another way?" he asks.

"If there were, I would have done it. Gods, this hurts. That's what this is, isn't it? Pain?" He touches his nose and winces. "Can someone try again?"

"I'm willing," Noct says, and Gladio hauls him back a step.

"We'll experiment with beating the crap out of the chancellor later," Gladio says. "How long we got?"

"You're a noble," Ravus shouts. "Speak like one."

"How long we got, _y'all,_ " Gladio says, with a deliberate drawl. Noct can't help the slight grin, and Gladio releases him.

"Gods above." Ravus adjusts the monitor. "Not long now. We're crossing the Glacian, which means there may be some... There. Ah."

"There what?" Noct grabs for Prompto as the ship jerks. 

"Shiva," Ravus says. "Her body is. Her body."

Everyone abandons Ardyn, who is still dripping blood on the floor, and makes for the windows. Noct's hold on Prompto tightens when the swirl of snow and sleet shifts enough for him to see what Ravus means: The body of the Glacian is slowly unfolding from where she lies, lifting her scarred head and swinging it to face their ship.

Ravus makes a strangled sound.

The world shakes as Shiva takes a lumbering step, and her hands rise towards them, boxing them in. Ravus guns the engine, but the ship screams as Shiva's hands close in, holding the ship in place. Her enormous eye takes up the entirety of the window. 

"King of the stone," she says, in a familiar, whispery voice.

Both Noct and Ardyn look up.

"The Oracle has passed you," Shiva says. "She has taken the Accursed's burden, and if you do not hurry, it will consume her."

"Luna." Noct's breath comes out in a cloud of steam. "Can she be saved? We're not too late?"

"Not yet," Shiva says. "There is still a chance. Take her to the Crystal, my king." Her gaze trails past Noct, to Ardyn, and a flicker of recognition creases her brow.

Ardyn smiles, but it's a true smile, with none of the wry sarcasm Noct has come to expect. "It's been a while," he says. 

Shiva says nothing. She merely lets them go, causing the ship to sputter and nearly collide with the side of her face. Then she steps back, and slowly sinks down, down, curling up into the same sleeping form she'd left behind.

The ship drifts towards Gralea. 

"I don't know about you guys," Prompto says, after a minute, "but after this? I'm retiring."

"That," Ravus says, in a faint, cracking voice, "is the best plan I've heard in years."


	3. Chapter 3

When Luna makes it to the emperor, he's already half gone.

He doesn't notice how empty the keep in Gralea is. He doesn't see the video feed of people fleeing Gralea in droves, crowding train stations and wailing as night sets in, borne on the heels of a horde of daemons that rise from the ice-covered streets. He doesn't feel the Scourge surging through him, distorting his voice, raising bumps on his skin. He doesn't even look Luna in the eye when she grabs him by the neck and drags him off his throne.

"Do you know me?" she asks. Her nails dig into the translucent skin of his neck, drawing pinpricks of blood. The emperor stares past her, into the dark. "You escorted me to Lucis months ago. You ordered the death of my mother. Do you see her, at least, in my face?"

The emperor reaches up to claw at her arm. "My crystal," he rasps. "You've come for my crystal."

"I've come for you," Luna spits, and presses down. The crunch of bone is sharp as a gunshot in the chamber, and Luna flings herself back, holding her arm to her chest. She stares in horror at the writhing body of the emperor, and her face twists, the shadows in her eyes shifting.

"Oh gods," she whispers. "Oh gods, I—"

The emperor's body starts to change, the Scourge at last taking hold, and the roaring in Luna's ears rises. The next moment, she's on him again, holding him down, gouging open his belly to let him bleed out before he can form into a daemon in full. The Scourge rises around her, smudging her skin like ash, and she rolls off the emperor's body.

He'd said something about a crystal. The crystal. Of course. She needs to see Noctis to the crystal. Then they can turn on the gods together, and she can be free. They can all be free.

She crouches over herself, listening to the chaos that roils in her brain, and fails to notice the hot tears that muddy the blood and Scourge on her hands.

 

\---

 

Gralea is empty when Ardyn's airship touches down. They step out onto empty streets, lights blown out in patches over the city, and the only sound aside from their breaths is the drag and skitter of daemons in the dark.

"She's here," Ardyn says. 

Noct makes to summon his sword, but Ravus intercepts him, pulling out the blade that hangs at his hip. It's Noct's father's sword, the one Noct saw at his side for half his life, the one he used to dream of wielding one day, tall and straight-backed and wise as his father.

He takes the hilt.

Nothing happens. No spectral light, no hum of magic, no lingering feeling of a spirit watching over him, guiding his steps. Noct looks up at the high walls of the keep, and feels suddenly, terribly alone.

Ignis takes his shoulder. Gladio pushes his back, as close to an affectionate speech as he can probably make right now, and Prompto takes a place at his free side.

"We'll save her," Noct says.

"We'll see," says Ardyn.

They enter the keep from a side entrance, and emerge into a long hallway that stretches out beyond a row of boxes, all flashing with green and red lights.

"I had a plan regarding this place," Ardyn says, his voice echoing off the walls. He peers into the darkness, tilting up his hat. "I can't recall what it was, though. Something to do with the excitable blond."

"Hey," Prompto says.

"He's not wrong," Gladio whispers back, and Prompto pushes his arm.

"Watch the MTs," Ravus says, and they stop at the sight of a half-circle of dead MT units, lying twisted up on themselves, weapons in hand. Noct takes a step forward, and they jerk, limbs twitching like fish on a line.

"Noctis." Luna's voice is tinny, like it's being broadcasted through a speaker. "Dear Noctis. I knew you'd come."

Before them, the MTs shudder and lurch, rising to their feet. The others summon their weapons, and Ardyn mournfully digs in his jacket for a knife.

"No," Luna says, and the MTs halt, their weapons only half raised. "Noctis. You must come to me alone."

Noct looks to Ignis, who's shaking his head. "Will you keep the rest of them safe?" he asks.

"Why do I need to? One is a traitor. Another is a failure. The others will all fail you as well, in time."

The MTs lift their heads. Their eyes glow dimly, as though the fire in their core is sputtering out. 

"Fine," Luna says. "You have an hour to find me. After that, your... friends... must find their own way home."

"Thank you," Noct says. The MT in front of him steps aside. "I'll be with you soon, Luna."

"Noctis." Noct looks back, and Ardyn tosses him something. A card, gleaming with the purple light of magitech. "For the elevator. It should still work, I hope."

Noct doesn't thank him. He just turns aside, sword in hand, and walks past the circle of MTs into the belly of the keep.

The keep, when he passes through the first set of inner doors, is silent. Noct can hear the press of stamping feet, the clank of armor and groan of leather, but every door he opens and hall he crosses is met with a yawning darkness. Once, he catches a flicker of movement; A line of MTs climbing into pods at the far end of a raised walkway, locking themselves in storage in anticipation of Noct's coming. He gazes up at their holding pods as he passes, and the silence of the keep rises to choke him, tightening his throat.

Somewhere at the end of all this, Luna is waiting. 

Noct breaks into a run, and his footsteps boom like thunder, like drums, like the metallic clash of bay doors slamming down that Noct will never not associate with a prelude to gunfire. His heart hammers wildly. Sweat stings his eyes. Luna is waiting for him.

Luna is waiting.

She is waiting in a gown that used to be white, once, her bare feet glowing in the light of the Crystal. Her face is a ruin of the Scourge, her hands filthy with blood and what looks like ash, and when Noct steps into the Crystal chamber, she looks at him with no sign of recognition.

"Luna," Noct says. His voice is breathy and too high. He swallows, but he can't seem to work his throat. "Luna, I'm so sorry."

Luna tilts her head. "Are you?"

He takes her hands. They're trembling, and when he squeezes her fingers, she holds on tight, nearly crushing the bone.

"They would have let us die for them," Luna says. Her voice is hoarse, and there's an echo to it, a reverberation that doesn't come from the vaulted walls of the chamber. "They created this, Noctis, all of this, and they stood by and let the Oracles stem the tide of the Scourge for centuries, let your ancestors die before their time, let our _parents..."_

"Hey." Noct glances at the Crystal, which glows with a faint, blue shimmer. "I know. So let's. Let's make it right."

"Yes," Luna says, and the blackness of her eyes deepens, spreading like ink.

"I'll need the ring," Noct says, and Luna recoils, flinching from his grip. "For the... We'll need the power, Luna. Both of us, together."

Luna's eyes narrow, but there's something of her old self in her smile, and her hand twitches almost spasmodically towards the patch on her shoulder. Noct reaches it before she can change her mind, and pulls out his father's ring from a gap at the top. Luna bares her teeth in a silent hiss.

"Careful."

"I will be." Noct shoves the ring on his finger, and before Luna can react, wraps his free arm around her waist. Luna grabs at his shoulder, and her nails dig into his shirt, sharp as knives.

"Please," Noct says, turning to face the Crystal.

" _No,"_ Luna cries, and she starts to push against him in truth, her mouth a black pit against her teeth. "No, don't trust them! You can't trust them!"

"Please," Noct says, and takes a dragging step forward. Luna _howls_ , scraping jagged lines down his arm, but he keeps going, doggedly shuffling towards the Crystal. "Give me the strength to save her."

"Traitor," Luna growls, and her hand finds his face, scrabbling at his neck. The light of the Crystal grows so bright that Noct has to squint and turn his face aside. "All this time, after all they've done, and you'll still go to them."

 _Come,_ says another voice, rising from the depths of the light.

Noctis wraps his other arm around Luna, and she lifts her feet off the ground, clawing at Noct like a mad creature, shrieking with a voice that no longer sounds fully human. The light consumes them, drowning out the rest of the world, and Noct hauls himself and Luna sideways, tipping together into the mouth of the Crystal.


	4. Chapter 4

Light fades. Bursts. Fades again. Noct comes to himself with his arms still wrapped around Luna's middle, her hot breath on his neck, the damp trickle of her tears sliding down his collarbone. Above them, the heart of the Crystal reflecting off his armor, stands Bahamut, the greatest of the Astrals.

Noct should feel cowed. He should be awed, or overwhelmed, or anything but exhausted and stretched thin as a wire frayed to snapping. He slides a hand up to the back of Luna's head, and tries to ignore the way her scream of fury tears through his bones.

 _You hold in your arms,_ the god says, _the woman who slew my sister._

Noct tries not to think about the fact that he and Luna are floating through empty space, that he can't even figure out how he's breathing in the core of a rock. "She wasn't herself," he says. 

_And so she remains. The Stone may heal her, but she must not leave until the magic has run its course. Hold her fast, little king._

Noct barely gets a chance to ask Bahamut to clarify. The light surrounding them flares, and Luna tries to wrench herself loose, beating at Noct's chest and dragging her nails at his wrists. He pulls her closer, and wishes he has some sort of wall to brace himself against, anything but this vast, spectral emptiness.

"It's gonna be okay," Noct says, and Luna laughs.

"Really? How so?" Luna lifts her face to Noct's. "Will you solve a problem, for once? Or will you sit back and let someone else do the hard work? Stay safe, and protected, behind your walls--"

"I know you don't feel that way, Luna," Noct says. Luna's back bulges under his hands, and he can feel something ripple under her dress, like the shifting of scales. 

"Do you? Do you know me at all?" Noct tugs her head to his shoulder. Her teeth scrape against his skin when she speaks. "Do you know a fraction of what it's like, living under the empire, marching to their tune while the murder of your mother hangs over you? Do you think a few lines in a journal can describe what it is to see a brother come to lick the boot that rests on his neck?"

"Maybe not," Noct says. Luna feels like herself again, but there are bits of ash lifting off her shoulders, disappearing in flashes of light like the pop of a campfire. "Maybe I don't know. But I can figure it out, if you tell me."

"Or you can spend weeks fishing in the wilderness instead."

Noct slips his fingers in her hair. Her braid is coming undone, her ponytail drifting down to her neck, and he closes his eyes as she bucks against him, trying to wrench away. "Yeah, I fucked up, there," he says. "I should've gotten to you sooner. Should've known who Ardyn was in the beginning. Should've made Dad go back to get you. But we can fix that, Luna. We can fix it now."

Luna shudders.

"We've got plenty of time."

He doesn't know how long he holds her. Time seems to shift, warping around him as she berates him for every perceived flaw to his character, as she curses the empire, Ravus, his father, the gods. Sometimes she just sobs, holding him as tight as he holds her, and her voice comes out thin, forced through gritted teeth.

"Hurts," she whispers. "Gods, it hurts."

"I know," Noct says. His own wounds are scabbed over, blood drying in rusty lines down his arms. "I'm sorry."

After a while, he starts to talk. It halting at first, unsure--He's never been any good at grand speeches or public speaking, not like Luna, and it shows, but eventually his voice starts to strengthen. He speaks into her ear, and even though she still hisses bitter rebuttals here and there, she seems to be listening. 

"I never really told anyone why I fell apart, that year I stopped writing to you for a while. I couldn't bring myself to go to the Citadel and see Dad. Every time I went, I thought, maybe this time, but then I'd think about how grey his hair was, and that new cane, and I just. Kept putting it off. I put everything off. I thought if I didn't think about it, if I didn't see him, maybe I could pretend it wasn't happening."

"You're good at that," Luna says.

"No, I'm terrible at it. But you'll figure that out, too, I guess. When this is over."

Luna's laugh bubbles in her throat.

"Mother and I were always close," she says. "She couldn't stand inaction. She always pushed Ravus and I to learn more, to think for ourselves, and she... I believe she may have known what would happen. She may have wanted me to... To find another way. And now I've."

Luna clutches Noct's shoulders. "I've killed the Leviathan," she says.

"Luna."

"I killed the emperor."

Noct runs a thumb under her eye, and the darkness flakes away, revealing only flushed cheeks. The tears she sheds now leave tracks through the Scourge, and Noct catches his breath.

"That wasn't you."

"I was there," Luna says. "I saw it happen. And I didn't stop it."

"Luna." Noct pulls back just enough to get a good look at her. "That's not the same."

"Oh, Noctis," she says, and finally, _finally,_ she sounds like Luna. Just Luna. Noct cups her face with a hand, and the ring of the Lucii breaks apart, collapsing in a flurry of light.

The Crystal itself has grown dim. Noct can feel his body more acutely than before, the chill that pricks at his skin, the pain in his arms and hands. He looks up, and all he can see is the fleeting outline of Bahamut before the last of the light leaves them, and he and Luna drop together onto a clammy earthen floor. The Crystal is behind them, lodged in the corner of what looks to be a stone tomb.

"Fuck," he says. His stiff arms give way, and he rolls to his side. Luna lies beside him, long hair falling free about her face, and he scrambles to reach her, Bahamut's last words echoing in his mind.

"Don't worry," Luna rasps. She smiles, faint and wry. "I'm myself again. I think."

"Oh." Noct says. "Oh, that's. That's great."

Luna lifts a hand, winces at the state of it, and lowers it again. "However," she says, "I do think I might need at least a year's worth of baths before I can think of touching anyone again."

Noct grins and rolls over her, wrapping her in an embrace that has them both laughing, utterly oblivious to the first ray of sunlight that comes drifting through the high, narrow window overhead.

 

The first thing Luna does, upon emerging from the tomb hewn into the rocks of Angelgard, is to walk straight into the water. A wave pushes at her waist, and when she turns to Noct, it strikes him that her jaw is a little more pronounced, the lines at her eyes deepened, her hair longer and lighter than before. Noct pulls off his shoes, leaving them on the pebbled beach as he follows her in.

Luna ducks under the water, and when she comes up for air, it's as though she's broken free of the sunrise itself, scattering drops of fire into the air. Noct wades closer, and she lifts her hands for a keen inspection.

"You have a beard now," she says. She touches Noct's cheek. "I'm not sure if I approve."

Noct scrubs his own jaw and jerks at the feel of hair under his fingers. "Huh. You don't think it makes me look, I don't know, more like a king?"

"It makes you look like your father." Luna says. "Please, for all of our sakes, do shave it off."

Noct smiles wryly. "As you wish, your majesty."

Luna lets herself be lifted up by the swell of a wave, and Noct reaches out to take her hand. He doesn't know how much of it is instinct, now, but Luna slides her fingers along his, easy as anything. Her shredded wreck of a dress floats up at her waist, drifting in the ebb and flow of the tide.

"I'm no one's queen," she says.

"You could be," Noct says, watching the sunlight gild her cheeks. "If you want to."

Voices call out from the rocks at their backs. Familiar voices, strained and just a little frantic, accompanied by the crash and slide of rocks underfoot. Noct doesn't turn to them, not yet. He waits, holding his breath, taking in the sunrise reflected in Luna's eyes.

At last, she steps back. She looks at Noct, and it's as though she can see right through him, past the halting words and into the truth he can never quite voice.

"We'll see."

She touches the side of Noct's cheek, and when he bends to kiss her, Luna wraps her arms around him with a smile. Noct takes her by the waist, and they stagger back a step, stirring up foam into the golden light of the sunrise.

They don't let go.


End file.
